Sunday, May 19th
Last update06:08:31 AM GMT
Special Interest Glance
Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization who was released from a British jail late last week, is facing a new challenge: the leak of a 68-page confidential Swedish police report that sheds new light on the allegations of sexual misconduct that led to Mr. Assange’s legal troubles.
The Swedish report traces events over a four-day period in August when Mr. Assange had what he has described as consensual sexual relationships with two Swedish women.
Bank of America Corp. Friday said it was joining other financial institutions in declining to process payments intended for WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks has gained attention in recent months for revealing Pentagon and State Department secrets. Founder Julian Assange has also said he plans a "megaleak" involving a major bank, leading to speculation that Bank of America could be the target.
The Vatican Bank is under new scrutiny in a case involving money-laundering allegations that led police to seize €23m (£19.25m) in September.
The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses optimism it will be quickly cleared up. But fresh court documents show that prosecutors say the Vatican Bank deliberately flouted anti-laundering laws "with the aim of hiding the ownership, destination and origin of the capital". The documents also reveal investigators' suspicions that clergy may have acted as fronts for corrupt businessmen and Mafia.
In a shocking report published earlier this year, BNET exposed how WebMD's online test for depression is rigged for profit.
But that's just the beginning. A number of questions about just how 'independent' a source WebMD is have since surfaced, and the answers are not what you'd expect.
As a former sex crimes prosecutor, I'm the last person you might expect to come to the defense of the unsavory WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. But the charges that now have him sitting in a British prison reek of opportunism and political expediency, and that does women around the world no good.
That doesn't mean that I think the two women who've accused him of committing sexual offenses last August are lying. One woman said she had consensual sex with Assange, but that the condom broke and he used his body weight to hold her down, presumably to complete the act. She hosted a party for him the next evening. A few days later, Assange had sex with another woman—allegedly while she was asleep—also without wearing a condom. Both women reportedly acknowledged that they freely chose to engage in sex acts with Assange—but that some of his conduct was nonconsensual.
As many as 15 people who knew that a Boise police officer had confessed to molesting babies will face no criminal charges. Ada County sheriff’s deputies investigated whether those people should be charged with failing to report the crimes. But deputies have determined that the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation that Stephen R. Young attended can’t be charged because of Idaho’s clergy privilege law.
And church officials say it’s because of that very clergy privilege that Young is in prison today.
Since releasing a vast cache of diplomatic cables this month, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has been the focus of intense criticism: for divulging classified materials, embarrassing the U.S. government and potentially endangering lives. But it has also engendered the frenzied support of an expanding and loosely defined global collective that seems intent on speaking out - and in some cases waging war on WikiLeaks' behalf.
The most prominent of those groups is known as Anonymous, which this past week sought to disable the Web sites of several U.S. companies as part of what it called Operation Payback.WikiLeaks has also drawn the support of traditional civil rights organizations and advocacy groups, which see the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks as an important test of U.S. commitment to freedom of the Internet.
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